Well let it be known that I don't think any self respecting RapidWeaver user should be without PlusKit but until now it has been hard for me to qualify that statement. When I have spoken of it's features and abilities, most have stared back at me blankly, not quite grasping what I was telling them. Thanks to Loghound and kkbrux of CRM Technik I can now just point them to this screencast that shows exactly how PlusKit will make your life easier.

There are very few double or tripple threats in the RapidWeaver developer circuit. There are those of us who develop themes for multiple platforms in addition to RapidWeaver, like SandVox or WordPress. There are those of us who are graphic artists and web designers all in one go. But there truly are few, if any until now, developers who have dared develop both RapidWeaver themes AND RapidWeaver plugins under one roof.

I think it is safe to say that Chris from Varsis Studio and seyDesign is the first well know RapidWeaver theme developer to take plugin development full on and make an excellent first effort into this brave new world. In my years working with Chris, he has never ceased to amaze me with his drive and determination and CoverFlow, his first RapidWeaver plugin, shows that he is willing to do what it takes to break into the plugin market. I couldn't be more proud of him.

If I had a dollar for every time I get asked, "How do I add a logo to my banner?" I would quick possibly retire. So to finally break the confusion cycle, I will tell you how it's done:

1. Go to the main menu bar in RapidWeaver
2. Select Site then Show Site Setup
3. From the resulting panel that pops up, select the "Home" icon (the tool-tip will read "Site Setup")
4. Half way down the panel you will see the "Logo" with a check-box beside it, select that box
5. Now select the "Choose..." button and navigate through your files to select the logo you wish to use, appropriately sized of course (png, jpg and gif are supported)
6. Select the preview button on the main RapidWeaver window and voila, you have a logo on every page.

The once popular RapidWeaved.com is back and fully functional! Slated as the RapidWeaver showcase site for the users by the users, RapidWeaved.com is promising to be the fair to all RapidWeaver users. It is the hope of seyDoggy, RapidWeaved.com's new caretakers, that the new version of the site be packed full of useful news and reviews in addition to the open site showcase.

If you have a site made with RapidWeaver then head over to RapidWeaved.com and submit your site today.

It's been a long time coming but RapidWeaved.com is finally making it's comeback. This is the RapidWeaver showcase site that was started by Gary Byrd a while back and was recently adopted by seyDoggy when Gary decided he could no longer feed and clothe this ever growing showcase beast.

RapidWeaved.com is looking for site submissions for sites built with RapidWeaver. Head on over and submit yours today.

It's an old saying and and the practice is as old as the market place itself, but never has "buyer beware" been so applicable as is in this age of cyber-shopping. It might be hard to believe but you just can't always trust a shiny website with promising copy. And that was very true today when Jumsoft.com announced their entry into the RapidWeaver theme marketplace.

Jumsoft is known for the Keynote and Pages templates so one would tend to conclude that they might know a thing or two about tempting and the shift RapidWeaver would be a no brainer... WRONG! I was very quick to buy one and test it out only to find it was so incomplete that it was UNUSABLE. Myself and others were quick to point out the folly of their ways on the forum and in emails to which they have responded to say that they are working on it.

Only time will tell if they can pull it all together or not. Hopefully they can. I can attest to how difficult and involved theme development and I think Jumsoft is learning this the hard way. Best of luck to them, we'll be watching.

There is a new RapidWeaver resource I think you should watch out for, rwreview.com. I was hesitant about bringing it so early in the development process since good intentions don't always equal a great follow through, but I thought this might actually have legs. That might be more because I want to see this thing succeed because I think the RapidWeaver community needs a consumer report of sorts for it's many 3rd party offerings. This might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how truly objective the authors are in the end but I am willing to watch and see where it all goes.

Hopefully the Mephisto powered blog is one that will allow multiple users to register at some point to allow multiple authors with multiple view points to contribute in the future. I suspect that rwReview.com and RWUpdates.com are going to have close ties when things really get going, pulling content and news from each other on occasion. There is no guarantee but it wouldn't surprise me. I can envision rwReview.com somewhat of a sister site to RWUpdates, but only time will tell.

From out of nowhere comes GWDI, a young icon and theme designer. His inaugural effort, Newspaper, shows a lot of promise for this up and comer. Welcome aboard Graham.

This is one of the most asked questions on the RapidWeaver support forums, "How do I wrap text around my images?"

In reality it is quite easy to do. In this tutorial I will show you how to drop an image into your document, size it and have your text flow around it.

1. From Finder, drag an image of your choice onto you document. For best results, put it at the beginning of a paragraph.
2. In many cases your image will not be the appropriate size. Select the image, go to "View > Show Media Inspector".
3. Using the up/down arrows beside the "Scale" box, reduce the size of your image to suit your needs
4. You will notice that your image now sits inline with your text. To get your text to wrap around your image, select the image, go to "Format > HTML > Align Image Left/Align Image Right"

To see it with your own eyes, click the movie below.

It might sound like the most basic task but I get many many questions regarding this very issue; how do I make a sub page in RapidWeaver? It's actually quite easy and logical. Sub pages in web design are often referred to as nested pages. In RapidWeaver that is exactly what you'll do; just grab a page in the RapidWeaver sidebar and drop it onto another page. Click the image below.

The first useful thing we've done on Leopard so far? We've made an RW Updates Dashboard Widget. Cool huh? If you're not a regular RSS reader and don't have time to go to the web site, just pop open your Dashboard and have a quick update on all the latest from RW Updates.

You can download the RW Updates widget here.